


Speculation

by Tiffany (tmh359)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Episode: s01e03 Blood Ties, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6621295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmh359/pseuds/Tiffany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard contemplates the team’s recruitment, Rip Hunter’s words and actions, and unpleasant possibilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speculation

**Author's Note:**

> Date: April 2016  
> Category: Episode Tag/Missing Scene - Pilot and Blood Ties  
> Spoilers: Pilot, Blood Ties (or S01E01-03) - Flash: Pilot, Fast Enough, The Man Who Saved Central City, Family of Rogues, references to Fury of Firestorm (or S01E01 & 23, S02E01, 03, 04)  
> Historian’s Note: This takes place during Blood Ties, somewhere between Rip checking on Kendra and Leonard questioning Gideon on changes to his timeline.  
> Warnings: References canon character deaths. Mild cursing (of the h-e-double-hockey-sticks type)
> 
> \------------------------------------------------------------

Mick dropped the screwdriver. He made a grab for the errant tool, and lost the heatwave gun in the process. The gun and the screwdriver together made enough of a racket to attack the attention of the three men in the adjoining office. Rip had a particularly peeved look. Leonard wasn’t certain if that was directed at them or at the research situation in general. Jax took the opportunity to stretch. He spoke a moment with Professor Stein, who waved him on. Jax joined Leonard and Mick in the main bridge area at the same time Sara came in from the hall entrance. 

Sara sat near Leonard, leaving one seat empty between them. She put her head back and stretched her legs in front of her. 

“Kendra that tiring?” Leonard asked. 

“No. Palmer. He keeps going on about his suit, and his company, and the Green Arrow. Trying cheer Kendra up.” After a thoughtful pause, she added, “Or impress her. And the sad part? I don’t think he knows he’s doing it.” 

“Talking?” Jax asked from his seat on the opposite side of the row. He, too, had his head back, though his eyes were closed. His forehead and eyes were creased. Less, Leonard suspected, in confusion and more from headache. 

Sara let out a soft, amused snort. “No. The trying to impress her.” 

“Oh.” That sounded like understanding, but it might have been exhaustion. The kid had spent the last couple hours in the other room off the bridge. Raymond would probably call it the “ready room”, but it looked more like an office turned living room to Leonard. Jax had been trying to assist Rip and the Professor in researching where Vandal Savage might be found in place and time. In the last half hour, Leonard had seen both Jax and Rip rub their eyes and heads multiple times, and Jax massage his knee. Stein hardly seemed put out by the project at all. Leonard wondered if that was endurance learned by years of schooling, research and grading papers. 

Jax opened his eyes, lifted his head, looked around. Mick muttered at his gun. Jax gave him a look, glanced at Mick’s bandaged fingers, prudently kept his mouth shut. He followed Leonard’s gaze to the office, grimaced and closed his eyes again. “History was never my favorite subject,” he muttered. 

Leonard smirked. Sara snorted. 

“I know,” Jax said. “Now I’m traveling in it. Not lost on me.” 

Sara grinned. 

After a moment, Jax softly asked, “Has she decided?” 

Sara’s lips fell. “No. Well, maybe.” 

The _Wave Rider_ was parked in some nowhere outside of St Roch. Hunter couldn’t decide which would change the timeline more: letting the world believe Aldus Boardman went missing, or his body being discovered late. They were past the date he had originally been found. Leonard thought he should have been more worried about the coroner’s explanation as to the cause of death. In the end, Rip had decided to leave it to Kendra to decide. She was using her convalescence as an understandable excuse to dither. 

“Maybe?” Leonard asked. 

“She keeps worrying about his friends. His family. She doesn’t want to leave them forever wondering.” 

“Or dreading.” Jax’s words were just shy of inaudible. 

“So, drop the body off,” Mick said. “Problem solved.” 

Jax winced. “Then there’s the poor guy who finds the corpse.” 

“Yeah, that too,” Sara said. “Kendra’s barely even mentioned that possibility since Hunter brought it up. And she was fishing for ideas on how to leave a message. Or a clue. Something to let his people know his fate. So, yeah, I think she’s made her decision. She’s just not ready to face it yet.” 

That left a pall of silence over the group. 

Mick distracted them by dropping the screwdriver, followed quickly by the needle nose pliers. Raymond had somehow roped Mick into helping with repairs to the Atom suit. Leonard hadn’t been there to hear how that particular conversation went down. After an explosion everyone in the _Wave Rider_ heard, Leonard arrived in time to stop Mick from throttling Raymond. The feet of the Atom suit were the main casualty. The heatwave gun, and eight of Mick’s fingers, took some damage, as well. Mick had suffered himself to be led off. He’d allowed his fingers to be bandaged, but wouldn’t let Gideon help the healing process. Leonard regretted not pushing the matter. It occurred to him - now - that he might have convinced Gideon to disgorge some drugs and so put Mick in a better mood. 

“Here,” Jax muttered, picking up the errant tools as one rolled under his chair. “Let me do it.” He kept the tools and reached for the gun. 

Mick pulled it away with a glare. Mick had been in no mood for help, or else Leonard would have had the gun fixed by now. 

Jax rolled his eyes then gave Mick a ‘don’t be an idiot’ look. The expression made Leonard think of his sister. Lisa was very good at that expression, even when _she_ was the one being the idiot. “Look, watch me the whole time. Tell me when I’m doing something wrong. It’ll be faster and a lot less annoying. To everyone.” 

Mick’s eyes narrowed. Leonard put a hand on the chair and more weight on his feet, preparing to step in. With a heavy sigh, Mick handed the gun over. Maybe Mick saw Lisa in the kid, too. Leonard breathed a silent sigh, stretched his feet. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Sara release tension in her arms and back, as if she, too, were standing down. 

Still, Leonard kept watch - mostly side eyed - as Mick abandoned a reach for the heatwave gun and pull his injured fingers back to his lap. Mick muttered instructions where it was needed. Jax seemed to have an intuitive touch with the machine and kept his quiet questions to a minimum. He didn’t drop the tools once. Mick scowled a lot, possibly as disgruntled by that last as he was with needing help in the first place. 

Leonard’s gaze traveled back to the occupants of the office. 

“You know, I could feel you watching us,” Jax said without looking up from his work. “If you keep up your… stalking or… peeping,” Jax winced at both words, and at his inability, Leonard thought, to find the right one, “even they are going to notice.” 

There was a moment of silence as both Sara and Mick glanced first at Jax, then looked at Leonard. Sara’s was puzzled, Mick’s more contemplative. Mick didn’t quite roll his eyes. “He’s thinking.” Only Mick could make ‘thinking’ sound like something to be disgusted about. 

Jax did look up at this. “That’s one creepy way of thinking.” After a pause and a look at the Professor next door, he added, “But quieter than his.” With another glance at Leonard, Jax returned his attention to the repair of Mick’s gun, adding, “And stiller, too.” 

“So, what are you thinking about so intently?” Sara asked, sitting up. 

Mick noticed his hesitance. “Yeah, Snart, share with the class.” Mick crossed his arms and regarded Leonard with a challenge in his eyes. 

Leonard sighed. He crossed his own arms, looked again at their so called Captain, who was currently presenting his back to them. “I was wondering: why did he choose now pick us all up?” 

“His wife and kid died,” Sara reminded in a tone that said she wondered about his sanity. 

“No, not his now,” Leonard nodded at Hunter’s back. “Our now. 2016. Kendra and Carter he could have picked up at any time. Almost literally any time. 4,000 years is a lot of incarnations. Mick and me he could have picked up at any time as adults.” Unless, of course, Hunter somehow knew of Leonard’s deal with the Flash in regards to killing. A deal he had kept. His father - well, that was just putting down a dangerous animal. 

“Weapons,” Mick grunted, his attention back on Jax and his favorite toy. 

“I doubt these,” Leonard patted his own favorite toy, “are the weapons he was after, Mick.” 

Sara smirked at this. Even Jax smiled, then dropped the smile when Mick gave him the stink eye. Jax still managed to look amused. 

Sara glanced at the door, as if to see down the hall. “If he wanted the Atom, and not just an eager inventor slash scientist, he would have had to wait until Ray invented his suit.” 

Leonard tilted his head in acknowledgment. He’d thought of that, of course. “So not before that.” 

“We all thought he was dead. For while.” 

“That would have been a perfect time to recruit Raymond,” Leonard said. “If he was already ‘dead’ then nobody would notice he was missing.” Sara winced at that one. 

Jax said, “We got our powers when the particle accelerator blew.” His fingers paused their work as his eyes found the office and its occupants. His gaze, though, looked far away. “We only just merged for the first time a couple months ago.” This was quieter. He had a faintly haunted expression. Did the kid see where Leonard was going with this? 

“I was dead. For a while.” Sara’s eyes were directed at the floor. Leonard doubted she saw it. “I wouldn’t have been any good for this mission before the League of Assassins. But after…” A pause, then she looked at Leonard. “Okay. Kendra and Carter any time, you and Mick any time, Ray after the suit, me after the League of Assassins, them after the particle accelerator.” Sara frowned. “So, all of the earliest he could have picked up up times… He could have picked us up earlier?” 

Leonard nodded. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said to Jax. “The way I see it, there’s only one person on this crew would could not have been recruited before now.” Leonard watched Rip toss a paper across the desk, disrupting the pile the Professor was looking at. The Professor shot him a look before re-ordering his own mess. 

“Gray.” It wasn’t quite a statement from Jax, but not a question. Leonard had his full attention. 

Mick grunted. “There was a Burning Man, before.” Mick had wanted to find him, too, when the rumors, then the photos, of the so-called Burning Man first appeared. Mick would never say so to their faces, but Leonard knew Mick envied Jax and Stein their Firestorm abilities. 

“Think about it. Rip gets the original Firestorm to join. Then one or both get themselves killed on this mission.” Like Carter, hung unspoken in the air. 

Mick gave him a furrowed brow. Sara stayed silent, her focus elsewhere. Jax grimaced. 

Leonard followed Jax’s gaze to the office. “I can guarantee a black hole in the skies of Central City would not have a ‘minimal affect’ on Rip’s timeline.” 

That brought him a sharp glance from Sara, a grunt from Mick. Jax’s grimace turned into an outright pained expression. In the office, the Professor frowned at the desk. A somewhat confused expression crossed his face. He looked up sharply, immediately met Jax’s eyes. Jax gave him a weak half-smile and a small shake of his head. The Professor’s eyes narrowed a bit; he looked at each of the others in turn, seemed to decide that whatever he was… sensing? feeling? - Leonard didn’t understand how their connection worked - wasn’t a threat, and went back to his papers and research. 

Sara rubbed her arms. After a moment, she asked, “Were you there? When the black hole…?” 

“Yeah, we were there.” Leonard inclined his head at Mick, including him in that ‘we’. Jax nodded, his attention certainly not on the gun, despite his eyes being directed at his lap. “That was not a great time to call Central City home.” 

It would have been a perfect time for a heist, though. Deep underground and in another city altogether. But with cars and people being pulled into the air, and buildings being torn apart… Between dodging panicking people and flying debris, Leonard’s attention had been on Lisa and Mick and where they were, and getting them and himself to safety. He did have time, once or twice, to spare a thought to Team Flash and what the hell they were doing to stop the disaster. He’d never been entirely certain if the lightening flashes were part of the black hole or the Flash himself. 

“I saw the Burning Man fly up,” Mick said. 

This earned Leonard’s attention. “I didn’t know that.” 

Mick nodded, more at the memory, Leonard thought, than at him not telling Leonard about it. “And I saw the explosion. It was gorgeous.” 

“I would have said terrifying,” Sara muttered. At their confused looks, she added, “It was on t.v. enough.” 

Mick frowned at her. “Not on t.v. I saw it live.” 

T.V. was how Leonard saw most of that. He’d been knocked over twice, in the melee. The last time, someone had kicked him before tripping over him and another person had stepped on Leonard’s hand. Thankfully it had been a petite, elfish woman not wearing stilletos. Still, by the time he managed to make himself a small target to feet and forced his way upright, the black hole was but a dark smear, and things were falling out of sky. Cars, street signs, chunks of sky scrapers, even people. Almost as soon as Leonard had regained his feet, he saw a mangled jungle gym set - the swings out like wings - plummet toward him. He’d dropped and rolled under the nearest vehicle moments before it craterized a neighboring car’s engine. 

That image had made the news, too. No one could determine if the jungle gym had left its home alone. 

Professor Stein was looking out at them again. At Jax. Jax was somewhere not here. 

Mick helped break the mood. “Hey. Gun.” He jarred Jax from his thoughts with an elbow. 

“What?” Jax blinked at him, then down at the almost re-assembled weapon on his lap. “Oh. Right.” He went back to work, though a bit slowly. 

Behind the glass, Rip noticed the Professor’s inattention. He glanced over his shoulder, frowned at the group of them in the bridge, then turned and said something to the Professor. Both went back their work, though the Stein seemed to find their presence distracting now, for he kept looking out at them at random moments. 

The room went quiet. Jax interrupted it once to ask Mick a question about where a particular screw was supposed to go, as there were more holes than screws. Then again to offer the finished product to Mick. Jax kept the tools, to Leonard’s relief. He didn’t think he could handle the noise of any more of them hitting the deck. 

“Thanks, kid.” Mick’s pat on his back nearly unseated Jax. Grinning, Mick went through a series of checks on the gun. Sighting, testing the trigger without firing the weapon, checking the access to the charge pack. This last was somewhat clumsy, and he had to extricate a snagged bandage. 

From the office, the Professor watched with a half smile. Rip, who had begun pacing around the desk with Aldus Boardman’s book in his hand, paused on the far side. He glanced at the Professor, looked at the rest of them, down to the gun Mick was messing with, then rolled his eyes. Leonard could see the sigh Rip heaved. He rubbed his nose and continued his pacing. 

Sara leaned back and stretched her legs again. “I think I know the answer to your question.” 

Leonard looked at her. 

“If Stein, and Jax,” she gave a little nod toward Jax - there was no doubt in her mind, too, then, that it was Firestorm who was wanted for this mission - “is the last “earliest” period he could pick up, then it was probably just easier to get the rest of us at the same time.” 

“It’s a thought,” Leonard allowed. A good one, at that. But… 

“Easier?” Jax put in, not looking convinced at all. “Does Captain Hunter really seem like the doing the easier thing kind of guy to you?” 

Mick snorted. “He shot us, kidnapped us, then let us go. It would have been easier to roofie us all and then leave 2016.” 

“Then we all would have fought him every step of the way,” Sara said. 

Mick shrugged. “We ain’t exactly been the most cooperative, have we?” Mick holstered his gun. “Let’s face it. We’re here to do the dirty work for him.” He looked at Jax, then over at the Professor. “Maybe them for air support,” he added, with a nod at the entrance to include Raymond and possibly Kendra in that ‘them’. 

Leonard pulled his feet in, leaned his elbows on his knees. “In which case, easier would have been to pick us up when we were most dangerous.” At least, Leonard before he had run-ins with Barry Allen to put ideas into Leonard’s head. 

“I’m plenty dangerous,” Mick said with a scowl. Leonard couldn’t dispute that. 

“Me too.” Sara shifted uneasily in her chair. “But I might have been more so, when I was still with the League. I wouldn’t stop until my target was dead. No matter what. Or when.” 

“I asked, once, what would happen if Kendra died,” Jax said. “Since we need Kendra to kill Vandal Savage.” 

“Or a version of her,” Leonard said. 

Jax nodded. “Hunter said he’d have to find another incarnation of her, and Carter, without disrupting the timeline. But he wouldn’t really look at us when he said it. You know, like he was thinking about lying to us again.” 

Like he was trying hide his shame. Sara made a little noise of assent. They were all beginning to recognize that look of Rip’s. 

“Gray thinks Hunter would drop us all back home. That a Kendra and Carter from the near future might know too much about us. And them from a far future would know too much about the really important history. Like we would if he picked up a Kendra and Carter from the past. And that the risk of revealing too much to each other would be dangerous. I think Gray would say that was why Hunter found us all at the same time - we all have history in common, language, pop culture, music, technology. Us all being from the same time means we don’t have to worry about an accidental slip.” 

Mick made a derisive noise. 

“What?” Jax demanded. 

“The best cons are when a mark makes his own explanations.” 

“The Professor has been really good at having explanations,” Sara noted, sounding both admiring and speculative. Her expression, though, was troubled. 

Jax, ruffled, crossed his arms and glared. 

“Hey, we’re all here,” Sara said. Jax’s expression relaxed, but his arms didn’t change position. “I wanted to rib Ray about that, earlier. He was so eager to believe the whole legends thing.” After a meditative moment, she added, “So was I, in a way.” She looked up when Leonard and Jax looked questions at her. “Who doesn’t want to think they can do something good with their lives. Something great.” 

Leonard nodded his understanding. 

After a moment of silence, Sara eyed Leonard in a suspicious manner. “There’s more, isn’t there?” 

“Hmm.” 

“You think there’s another reason he picked us up in 2016 at the same time?” Jax asked. 

Leonard glanced toward the bridge entrance. “There’s Aldus Boardman.” 

“Okay,” Sara said, unenlightened. 

“Rip set us down the day before he died. Would die. Dies.” Leonard frowned. Time travel played havoc on tenses. Leonard caught Jax not-quite suppressing a smile at Leonard’s confusion. 

Sara nodded. “To avoid changing his timeline.” 

“Get to the point,” Mick demanded after an annoyed huff. 

Leonard suppressed his own annoyance. “Didn’t it strike you as…” Leonard searched for a word. The best he could come up with was, “…practiced?” 

Mick grunted. Sara, brow furrowed, said slowly, “I guess, if you were a professional time traveler, it would make sense to avoid meeting people in their prime. To keep from accidentally changing anything.” 

Jax’s crossed arms tightened. “I’m twenty. That hardly counts as old age.” 

“Unless you were going to die at twenty-one,” Sara shot back, a slight smile suggesting she was teasing him. The smile dropped abruptly. She looked intently at Leonard. “Are you saying we all die in 2016?” 

“Rip didn’t come the day before,” Leonard said. “I don’t think. He gave us time to decide. But he’s from 150 years in the future. We’re all sitting in a time ship.” A time ship that sometimes talked back. “He’s already told us about the future. Showed us pictures of what Vandal Savage has done. We’re already… contaminated. When we get home -” 

“If we get home,” Jax muttered. 

“- don’t believe for a moment that all this,” Leonard lifted two fingers in a not-quite-wave to indicate the ship and the adventures it represented, “won’t affect our timelines. But only if we _have_ timelines to affect.” 

“So, what, we’re all supposed to die at the same time?” Jax asked. 

“That would be convenient,” Sara said. “I wasn’t even in the States.” 

“We were in Pittsburgh.” 

“Maybe there’s a catastrophe about to happen,” Leonard said. “Maybe he got us before we all traveled to the same place. Maybe our deaths have nothing to do with each other.” He shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t lie to us when he said that individually we are destined for greatness. Maybe that greatness is in how we die. And it’s dangerous to know too much about our futures, because we might just change all that.” 

Leonard speared Rip a glare. Rip now sat at the desk, his head on the surface, his arms down. The Professor was watching, contemplatively. 

On the roof, Professor Stein had jumped on the legends thing quickly. Leonard had thought that he’d missed the whole 150 years in the future part. Of course they were all dead, as far as Rip was concerned. Unless Stein actually thought he was going to live for another century and a half. Now Leonard wondered if the Professor somehow suspected the whole not interrupting the timeline thing - that Rip might have come to them at the recorded ends of their lives the same way he put them down the day before Aldus’s recorded death. 

Sara frowned at her feet, then at Leonard. “We’re talking about destiny all over again.” 

Leonard did a one-shouldered shrug. “Still doesn’t mean we have to let anyone put a cap on our destiny. We’re in a time ship. We keep our eyes and ears open, we might be able to change our history.” Not that their attempts to change history worked out so well. And Leonard’s attempts to change his own and his family’s history… were inconclusive. He still didn’t feel any different. His memories of his father’s arrest - and of all the ugly events after his release - didn’t seem to be any different, either. He was going to have to interrogate Gideon, when he got a moment alone. “Our future history, anyway.” 

Sara made an unconvinced noise. 

About that moment, Professor Stein followed Rip out of the office. 

“Finally taking a breather?” Leonard asked. 

Rip paused a moment, looked at each of them in turn, as if searching them for something. He had a haunted look about him. Without saying a word, Rip breezed out of the bridge. 

“What was that about?” Sara asked, as the Professor moved to stand behind Jax. 

“The Captain has remembered we have dead that need burying.” 

Leonard narrowed his eyes. “By which you mean you reminded him?” 

“No,” he answered with a shake of his head. His gaze went toward the exit. “He’s gone to look for a suitable spot.” 

“Ah, outdoors.” Mick stood abruptly. “I’ll get to test out your repairs,” he said to Jax, then followed Rip’s lead. 

The Professor looked down at Jax. “Repairs?” 

“I got tired of all the dropped tools.” 

“Ah. And, uh, what were you all discussing so intensely?” The question was directed at Jax, but the Professor’s gaze meet Leonard’s. 

Jax glanced at Leonard, then Sara. “Just some ugly speculation.”


End file.
